


complicated questions, simple answers

by abigailcathleen



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 22:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abigailcathleen/pseuds/abigailcathleen
Summary: Grizz doesn’t answer, just signs 'my turn now', asks Sam if he’s ever watched porn in hopes that he can change the subject, shift somewhere lighter.“Duh,” Sam rolls his eyes. “Of course I have. Now. Do you seriously think I won’t want to be with you anymore when we get back home?”(Or: on telling the truth, trying something new, and the birth of the Atlantic.)





	complicated questions, simple answers

Without operating movies theatres to watch films in or restaurants to eat in or museums to wander through, Grizz didn’t really know how to go about this whole dating thing. It didn’t help that he acquired most of his dating knowledge from rom-coms and his friends ( _modern_ dating knowledge - he loved the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen, but figured their teachings were a little outdated). He watched hordes of blonde women with quirky hobbies pursue green-eyed men with great apartments, all of them falling in love and living, presumably, happily ever after, cue the fireworks. He stood by as most of his friends, most of the guys at school, really, nodded at girls across the cafeteria, kissed their necks behind the school, hooked up with them in the back seat of their cars while playing The Arctic Monkeys and fogging up the windows. He used to do his best to emulate the other guys, sometimes making out with girls after victorious football games, or touching their waists when they stood close to him at parties, letting them tug him into hall closets or bathrooms and get on their knees, keeping his jaw clenched and willing himself to enjoy it before pushing them off a few minutes later. 

With Sam, it’s completely different.

No longer does his stomach coil at the thought of holding someone’s hand, doesn’t have to curl up in a ball and let hot tears roll down his face after sex. He’s with someone now who makes him feel joyous and safe and light and like he isn’t all alone, drifting through the universe (whatever universe they may be in). And it’s nice, so fucking nice. Not just nice, but amazing, awesome, euphoric, in the truest sense of those words.

But, well, it’s still confusing.

Because he doesn’t have the blueprint for this kind of thing. He fearfully, unfortunately, didn’t keep any books or plays or movies with heavily featured gay romance on his bookshelf, had nothing to try and get clues from, and even if he did, could they have prepared him for this confounding world, this unshakeable fear, this unlikely boy?

So, even though Grizz has no idea what he’s doing, he’s just trying to do something, anything, ‘cause even though this place is scary shit, it’s given him the best thing that’s ever happened to him. And with Sam, well, Grizz is starting to realize that most anything, even the scary shit, is possible. 

Now, they’re doing the most unscary scary shit a couple could do while curled on the couch, a fire Grizz built burning in the fireplace and snow lightly falling out the window (their current ‘date’ of choice). They’re telling the truth. 

It’s the kind of intimacy Grizz always secretly craved but never knew he could have, not only because he didn’t think he deserved it, but because, well, most guys he knew were never really super serious with their girlfriends (save for Luke), and he figured that other guys wouldn’t want the same thing.

Sam (of course) is different, and that’s why he brought up this game of sorts with Grizz. 

He learned it from a book he borrowed from Becca one summer. The game is called Truth and it’s pretty self-explanatory. Ask each other questions and you have to tell the truth. If you don’t want to tell the truth, and the other person truthfully answers that question, you lose.

 _I know you’re probably supposed to get to know who you’re dating by like, going on dates with them,_ Sam says and signs, Grizz absolutely beaming that he can pick up most of it from Sam’s hands alone, leaning against the armrest of the couch and stretching his legs over Grizz’s lap. _But, I mean, we already live together. So._ He shrugs and they laugh and Grizz hands him his hot chocolate. 

“Okay,” Grizz starts. He _hums_ and _haws_ for a minute while Sam intermittently sips his hot chocolate and leans in to place gentle kisses on the curve of his jaw, the skin above the collar of his sweater. Grizz can hardly think with that happening and considers forfeiting right then and there, but just before he does a question flashes in his mind that’s too good not to ask. He catches Sam’s eye while he spoons a softened marshmallow into his mouth, tries his best to sign along as he asks, “Who was the first guy you ever had a crush on?” 

“Shit,” Sam says, setting his mug down on the coffee table. _It’s embarrassing._ His hands move around his face in a sign Grizz recognizes well, one Grizz needed Sam to show him early on so he could talk about that first time they spoke in New Ham, how Grizz felt about signing _bullshit_ and making a bit of an ass out of himself. 

Grizz pokes at Sam’s sides to make him squirm about, before settling his hands on his warm waist and leaning in to peck him on the nose then lips before leaning back and signing, slowly, _please?_

“ _Fine,_ but you can’t laugh,” Sam starts, but he’s already starting to laugh at himself before he starts signing up a storm. “My dad played in a baseball league with some guys from work in the summers when I was growing up and we’d all go to watch their games. There was this one guy, James. He was pretty young, only been working a few years probably, and he’d always take his shirt off at the end of the game when they all had beers and we ate watermelon. And _fuck,_ ” Sam closes his eyes for a second. “Grizz. You wouldn’t believe this guy. Like, James Dean meets young Leo meets _Good Will Hunting_ era Matt Damon.” Grizz can’t stop laughing and Sam hides his head in his hands and groans but Grizz pulls his hands away and starts kissing his fingers.

“You,” _kiss,_ “are,” _kiss,_ “so,” _kiss,_ “ _fucking_ ," _kiss,_ “cute.” He keeps holding Sam’s hands tight and leans in to plant a firm kiss on his lips. He drops Sam’s hands when he pulls back so he can clumsily sign along to, “I love that answer.”

Sam sticks his tongue out but it has no bite and is surrounded by a small smile. He forms what looks to Grizz like a finger gun, brings it back towards his chest. _My turn._

“If you had the chance to show me one song that I could hear, what would you show me?” 

Grizz’s face flushes, but at least he knows a bit of sign to help him out. _It’s embarrassing._

Sam throws his arms around his shoulders and kisses him all over his face, and Grizz can’t say no to that, and besides, it’s helping him feel a bit more confident in his song choice. 

He knows a sign for this probably doesn’t exist, so he fingerspells it out. “It’s called _Transatlanticism._ Kinda emo. But also pretty lovely. I listened to it for the first time because a saw a post online that described it as the song you showed someone when, well,” _you realize you wanna spend your life with them_ his mind fills in, “you, like, _know_ about them, you know?”

Grizz is a little flustered at trying to save himself there, and he knows Sam can read it on his face because it’s _Sam._ But, mercifully, Sam doesn’t ask him about how he tripped over his words, instead signs, _What’s the song about?_

“Um. Pangea? Kinda.” Sam squints at Grizz in that smiley way he does, tilting his head a little like a border collie. “As like a metaphor. The guy singing is saying, like, he witnessed the birth of the Atlantic Ocean, and it was this wild, miraculous thing that changed the world, but that it took him away from the person he loves. It’s about love across distances, I guess. Feeling far away from someone and needing to be close to them.” Grizz’s face is still hot but he keeps his head up so Sam can read his lips when his signs fail him. “That was probably a shitty explanation.”

Sam shakes his head no. “You could learn to sign it to me, though. That’d be cute.” He laughs his beautiful, wild, miraculous laugh that Grizz adores, and Grizz wants to join in but just can’t, thinking about that song, looking around the living room and the crazy life they somehow have together, this date they’re on turning into all the dates they never would have gone on without this fucked up place, unable to shake the weird feeling in his stomach. 

Sam’s squinting at him again, laying a cool hand against Grizz’s warm cheek, eyes all deep and concerned and blue like the Atlantic. “What’s wrong?

“It’s probably dumb,” Grizz starts, and Sam glares at him the way he always does when Grizz calls himself dumb or anything close, “ _okay,_ it just makes me feel a little silly. It’s just that, I don’t know. I know we’re, you know, unlikely. Like this, _us_ , wouldn’t have happened without New Ham. And for that, I’m pretty grateful to this place. But at the same time, I’m always waiting for us to get back home. And when I think about that, I just think about us, and think like, back home…” He trails off. 

“Back home, what?” Sam considers him for a minute before it clicks. “Do you think that when - and I mean when, because we will, I know it - we get home, I’m not going to want to be with you anymore?”

Grizz doesn’t answer, just signs _My turn now,_ asks Sam if he’s ever watched porn in hopes that he can change the subject, shift somewhere lighter.

“ _Duh_ ,” Sam rolls his eyes. “Of course I have.” He props himself up a bit more, wants to be serious, grabs Grizz’s hands tight and stares at him fixedly until he holds his gaze, let’s his hands go so he can sign. “Now. Do you seriously think I won’t want to be with you anymore when we get back home?” 

“I just, I don’t know. What if we only work because we’re in this new place with no rules? What if you get home and realize that with, you know, a world full of cities and art and other guys that I’m not, you know, that interesting? What if you realize,” Grizz sighs, deflates a bit, eyes shifting away from Sam’s slightly. “I don’t know. That you deserve better than me.”

But Sam is shaking his head at Grizz. “No. Nope. I don’t accept that as the truth. So I’m going to answer this, and this is the truth. Do I think that I’m not going to want to be with you anymore when we get home? Of course not, because you’re just as much my home as West Ham is, alright? You really think that after all of this, after we somehow fucking found each other among the rubble, that I’d give this up? The truth is that I’m not letting you go because I really think, deep inside me, that we’re going to spend our lives together, which is probably crazy, but if there’s anything I learned here, it’s that crazy shit happens all the time. So there.” He drops his hands for a moment, then swipes at the tears that started to fall down his face and Grizz realizes he needs to do the same. Sam, cheeks flushed to match his hair from crying, his blue eyes more profound, brighter somehow, sticks his tongue out at Grizz then declares, “I win.”

Grizz can’t stop smiling, and he decides he’s going to stop being embarrassed, learn to sign along to that song, and sign it to Sam every goddamn day of their lives. 

Sam wipes his hands on Grizz’s jeans then climbs onto Grizz’s lap, straddles his thighs. He pulls off his sweater and tosses it to the floor, leaving himself in a tight white tee, and suddenly Grizz is feeling kinda hot and bothered, too, and it’s not from his sweater or the roaring fire. Sam wraps his arms around Grizz’s neck and pulls him in to kiss, searing hot and deep, and Grizz feels like his burning up and drowning all at the same time, in the best way possible. Sam pulls back after a minute and Grizz tries to chase his lips but Sam puts a finger to his lips, stopping him.

“I may have won the game, but I’m stupid in love with you and want to give you everything. So.” Grizz can feel the stars in his eyes at hearing Sam say that for the first time, and he can see the ones forming in Sam’s eyes, too. “Wanna know the first thing I’m gonna do when we get home?”

Grizz nods, and steals a quick kiss that he hopes says _I want to spend the rest of my life with you, crazy things happen all the time and I’m crazy in love with you, I need you so much closer._

“Realistically, I’m gonna hug my mom and dad, probably cry a fuckton, then sleep for two days straight. But, then, I’m going to text you to pick me up because I can’t drive, then we’re going to go to Mandy’s Diner in Wellington County because I miss her carrot cake milkshakes more than most things, and we’re going to get started on the rest of our lives together. Okay?”

Grizz wants to say a million things, express the million things that hearing these words from Sam means to him, somehow get Sam to understand that all of this is so far beyond anything he could have imagined for himself, so different than anything he could’ve learned in rom-coms on movie theatre screens or the bustling, hormone-fueled hallways of their high school, that it’s so, _so_ much better than okay. 

But, Grizz knows now they’ve got lots of time for all things yet; in fact, they’ve got forever. So he tears off his sweater, pulls Sam’s face down to his, and lets himself try to answer without words. 

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I should pack my lunch for work tomorrow, clean my room, and get to bed early.  
> Also me: Gets stoned, listens to Death Cab, and writes this. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (Song is Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie, game is from the CLASSIC summer read, The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen, and carrot cake milkshakes are real, wild, miraculous things).


End file.
